RCU Forums - View Single Post - Not a Newbe, but looking for plane and 2.4 GHz radio recommendations / opinions
Old 01-06-2015, 09:38 AM
  #22  
D400webb
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Location: South Central British Columbia
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Thank-you for the info on what to expect with the 2.4GHz radios.

I live in a wide, east-west oriented valley in a plateau region with a semi-arid climate. There's a flat, 15 acre hay field within a few hundred feet of my house that I'll probably use for launching/landing. I have a standard hi-start, but I may build a winch. I have no experience with a OneWinch, but it's intriging, and I may fiddle with building one from scratch.

Winds here are generally very light (or non-existent) during most of the day, except for occasional windy days during late fall and early spring; daytime winds reaching 10 mph would be uncommon after mid-April and until mid-October, and quite rare between mid-June and mid-September. The exception would be highly localized winds from extreme thermal activity, but these come and go from one minute to the next and are often restricted to the later afternoon. Summertime winds pick up in the evenings, however, as the sun drops lower and the temperature drops, allowing the cooler plateau air to rush down into the valley (making evenings best for sloping).

While I've built several planes from kits and even scratch-built, you're right that I'm leaning towards an ARF for this model; particularly the Art Hobby Odyssey 2.7 (probably a full-house variant with dihedral, or perhaps mild polyhedral). I realize the SD 7080 foil is considered older today. It is (theoretically at least, when one compares polars) relatively similar to the mainstay SD 7037 of a decade or two ago, but with slightly better lift characteristics at cruise speeds, and it trades less drag for slightly more speed during thermaling (again, relative to the SD 7037). By comparison, the AG blend of foils used by ships like the Ava produce even greater lift at cruise speeds, but also require more speed than the SD 7080 during thermaling, which is less suited to my style of flying. The SD 7080 should (theoretically speaking again) out lift the AG 24 (blend) during calm day thermaling (but not during cruise). The AG 24 should also be a more sensitive foil to fly, requiring a larger tail group; again, not the best match to my lazy flying style. I have no data on the AG 40-43 (Supra) from which to judge theoretical performance.

The Ava Pro seems an incredibly capable airframe, but (and maybe I'm just old-school) I really like the look of the sheeted wing cores of the Odyssey, and since I'm not into competition, it seems unnecessarily expensive to spend $1000+ on a model. Plus, this way I could put the saved funds into updating radio gear for other planes, or maybe even buy a new HLG (or just finish off a HLG project I'd started many years ago!), or try DLG.

I realize it may sound like I've pretty much made my choice here, but I'm still open to input, ideas, and suggestions.

Last edited by D400webb; 01-06-2015 at 11:26 AM.